Kicked

Powerline "notes that the DNC's "blog" Kicking Ass is back on the air after a brief outage.

They noted correctly that it's not a blog at all - it's a message board. And they close by noting:

Kicking Ass provides a useful window into the soul of today's Democratic Party. And the astonishing thing is, it isn't just a bunch of loonies like IndyMedia; it's sponsored by the Democratic National Committee.

Many leftblogs have a curious practice of posting "Open Threads" (like this example from the Daily Kos, who, if memory serves, has a hand in "Kicking Ass", which is essentially nothing but "Open Threads").

Why?

I don't recall ever seeing this practice on any conservative blog. Which, I think, highlights a key difference between conservative and liberal grassroots communication; liberals seem to need to carry out their conversations within some sort of hierarchy, with some higher authority vetting and authenticating it. The trend, online, started with the myriad email discussion groups, like the once-great, now-nearly-worthless Minnesota Politics mailing list, and seems to continue with the likes of Kicking Ass, Democratic Underground, Indymedia, Kos and the many other sites that ape the practice. It'd be inflammatory to call it "hive mentality", but I can't think of a better word...